Phffft

My parents got married in 1953, after dating for three years. My father was a salesman of packaging, my mother a garment-district buyer. During their courtship, both lived at home (with parents or grandparents) in Brooklyn, so, though they were strictly middle class, all their income was disposable, and, judging from the stories they told me, they disposed of it—especially my father, who picked up the check for many evenings of dining and dancing at night spots all over town, which ended with long-past-midnight subway rides home. I saw photos: their coiffures were, respectively, hair-sprayed and Brylcreemed; their clothing was tight and shimmery; their shoes gleamed; my mother’s makeup was as precise and opaque and lustrous as an oil painting; their poses had a blend of youthful swagger and expected formality. That precise moment of my prehistory is brought to mind by “Phffft,” a 1954 comedy that stars Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday. He’s a lawyer, she’s a TV writer, and, though their milieu is glossier and wealthier, the sites of their escapades remind me inescapably of those I grew up hearing about. Among the movie’s other virtues are its terrifically droll, though brief, scenes of soap-opera production—one from its early days on live television, and one, in a flashback, from its waning days on radio. I discuss the film in this clip.

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